- Mali: Insurgents Ambush Army Convoy, Source Says More Than 50 Killed
Source: US News & World Report
“Militants linked to al Qaeda and a Tuareg-led separatist group ambushed a military convoy in northern Mali over the weekend, and a source close to the rebels said more than 50 soldiers and allied Russian fighters were killed and others taken hostage. The attack marked the latest in a series of escalating assaults by the two groups, which joined forces for nationwide attacks in April that killed the defence minister and hit the airport in the capital Bamako, and launched a second wave this month aimed at seizing the town of Anefis.” (07/20/26)
- EU hits China’s Alibaba with €550M record bribe demand
Source: Politico
“The European Commission slapped Chinese e-commerce giant AliExpress with a record €550 million fine on Monday for failing to stop the sale of illegal and harmful products on its platform. ‘There were a lot of counterfeit products, unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics which stayed online for a very long time,’ the EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters ahead of the announcement. ‘Products were still being recommended and advertised on the platform … even after it was already known that they did not meet the standards.’ The penalty is the biggest ever imposed by the EU executive under the bloc’s rulebook policing online platforms, the Digital Services Act, which requires very large platforms, including AliExpress — owned by China’s tech giant Alibaba — to assess and mitigate the risks associated with the spread of illegal content and goods on their systems.” (07/20/26)
- Tropical Depression Two expected to become Tropical Storm Bertha later Monday as rain targets the Southeast US
Source: Fox Weather
“Tropical Depression Two is expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Bertha later Monday in the eastern Gulf, which would become the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Depression Two formed in the eastern Gulf on Sunday and is expected to bring days of heavy rainfall to parts of the Southeast. Tropical Depression Two was located about 100 miles south of the eastern Florida Panhandle Monday morning, with maximum sustained winds increasing to 35 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). … According to the NHC, Tropical Depression Two is currently forecast to move slowly northwest along the northern Gulf Coast over the next several days.” (07/20/26)
- Russia: Anti-War Politician Ends Run for Parliament, Citing Legal Setbacks
Source: US News & World Report
“Boris Nadezhdin, a Russian anti-war politician who had hoped to stand in parliamentary elections later this year, has announced he is ending his role in opposition politics for now, blaming what he said were politically-motivated legal setbacks. Nadezhdin, 63, a former liberal lawmaker, has been an outspoken critic of Moscow’s war in Ukraine …. In a statement, Nadezhdin said he had ran out of political road however, after a series of setbacks. He received a small fine on Friday for displaying ‘extremist symbols’ and was this month designated a ‘foreign agent’ by the justice ministry. Both rulings disqualified him from running for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in September elections, his statement – issued on Sunday – said. He said he had also been banned from leaving Russia.” (07/20/26)
- Food delivery rider wins China’s top literary prize
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“A collection of poems, some scribbled on slips of paper between food deliveries, has won Wang Jibing one of China’s top literary honours. Low Flight, inspired by the everyday challenges delivery riders face, has bagged the Lu Xun Literary Prize – named after a writer who has been referred to as the father of modern Chinese literature. … The monetary awards for recipients of the Lu Xun Literary Prize are not publicly announced – though as of 2014 it stood at 100,000 Chinese yuan ($14,800; £11,000). Born in Jiangsu province, Wang left school as a teenager due to financial hardship at home. He took on various jobs, from construction to scavenging for waste and selling things at a street stall, before becoming a food deliveryman. But his love for reading persisted, and over the last decade he has been posting his own poems and essays on social media.” (07/20/26)
- Congo: Known Ebola death toll passes 930
Source: Seattle Times
“At least 930 people have died in Congo’s Ebola outbreak, the country’s Ministry of Health said Monday, with 37 new deaths recorded in a 24-hour span Friday into Saturday, one of the highest totals. The deaths were recorded out of the 2,344 cases confirmed as of Saturday, the health ministry said. The Ebola outbreak that was declared in eastern Congo on May 15 is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. The Bundibugyo virus responsible for the outbreak is less common than others that cause Ebola disease, and there is no approved vaccine or treatment.” (07/20/26)
- US FDA says Taylor Farms Cyclospora lettuce test was a false positive
Source: Fox News
“The Food and Drug Administration said Sunday that a Taylor Farms lettuce sample initially reported as positive for Cyclospora should be considered a false positive following an additional laboratory review. ‘Due to the complexity in detection of Cyclospora, FDA laboratory experts re-reviewed the sample results and have concluded that the finding does not represent true amplification and should be considered a false positive,’ the agency said. The FDA said no product samples had produced a confirmed positive result for Cyclospora as of Sunday.” [editor’s note: I predict that FDA will eventually just announce what we already knew — explosive diarrhea is a frequent and long-known side effect of eating food from Taco Bell – TLK] (07/20/26)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/taylor-farms-cyclospora-test-false-positive
- India: Police clash with “cockroaches” marching to protest exam irregularities
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“India’s riot police baton-charged protesters in New Delhi as they tried to march to parliament on Monday, escalating a protest over irregularities in major examinations. Protesters ran for cover as police in blue riot gear charged at them near the Jantar Mantar protest site. The protesters are demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the irregularities, including question paper leaks and technical glitches.” (07/20/26)
- US Coast Guard medevacs Carnival cruise ship passenger off California coast
Source: SFGate
“A woman was medevaced off a Carnival cruise ship last week after she showed signs of having a stroke, the Coast Guard said. … A MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew flew 45 miles off Humboldt Bay to reach the vessel. Video taken by the crew shows Coast Guard members lowered from the helicopter onto the deck of the Luminosa. … The medevac was conducted ‘despite 8- to 10-foot seas and 40-mph winds,’ the Coast Guard said in a news release.” (07/19/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/carnival-medevac-california-22351225.php
- US gas again tops $4 per gallon as Iran fighting persists
Source: Axios
“Drivers can expect pump shock déjà vu as the national average gas price again climbed over $4 per gallon today, as President Trump appears poised to escalate the war in Iran. … The national average is now $4.00 a gallon, per AAA. Last month, prices slipped back below $4 per gallon, giving some relief following months of pain at the pump.” (07/20/26)
- Just Pick a Time Already!
Source: Townhall
by Arthur Schaper“Americans have endured 50 years of this springing forward and falling back. I’m sick of it. It’s like some old relic, all coming from wartime, an anachronism proving yet again that government intervention knows no bounds. Times have changed, agricultural methods have improved, and everyone has technology to light their way, whether driving to work or getting to school. The United States has never been more energy dominant and independent, so concerns about fuel costs and availability don’t matter anymore. To go with Standard Time or Daylight Saving Time is now a matter of preference. Lots of interest groups are going to be happy or unhappy either way, so let’s put aside their discomforts.” (07/20/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/arthurschaper/2026/07/20/just-pick-a-time-already-n2679595
- Alan Greenspan’s Deceitful Legacy
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith“When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton reportedly said, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’ That wasn’t necessarily a wisecrack, and Sutton denied having said it, though late in life he admitted, if he had been asked, that likely would be his reply. Success for some is measured by the amount of money they have, and banks are known to have lots of it. For a bank robber, it’s a matter of switching ownership of it through a threatened act of violence. Sutton, though, was not a violent man and never killed anyone. … You can rob a bank and take ownership of the money you take. Or you can control a central bank and steal the money’s purchasing power from under our noses. Willie Sutton was a thief. And Alan Greenspan?” (07/20/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/alan-greenspans-deceitful-legacy
- Trump’s War and the Decay of the American Soul
Source: Antiwar.com
by Nolan Denaro“One thing that is always thrown by the wayside in times of war is the maintenance of the national soul. When faced with the inherent brutality of war, the emotions of the moment can overshadow the values we seek to uphold. When the job of maintaining this national soul is left to the state, – a group Murray Rothbard labeled a ‘centralized, regularized organization of theft’ – more enticing projects tend to arise. Often those projects directly harm the citizens of the nation, as by the state’s very nature, they tend to involve aggression, theft, murder or coercion. Despite the lack of care given by the government to our nation’s soul, it is nonetheless a core pillar of a cohesive country. It defines the virtues our country intends to project to the world.” (07/20/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/nolan_denaro/2026/07/19/trumps-war-and-the-decay-of-the-american-soul/
- Trump’s Brazil tariffs could boomerang on Flavio Bolsonaro
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Andre Pagliarini“[T]here’s a reason Washington’s tariffs and the Brazilian presidential race have become inseparable. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the convicted former president and Lula’s likely opponent in the October election, visited Trump, Rubio, and other senior officials in Washington in May. He returned to lobby USTR directly again in July, this time asking for a 180-day delay so the tariffs wouldn’t land before Brazilians voted. His argument was candid about the politics involved: imposing the tariffs now, he told American officials, would hand Lula ‘precisely the political victory’ the president’s campaign has been ‘engineering.’ Lula, for his part, has accused the senator, whose brother advocated for Trump’s trade war against Brazil last year, of committing ‘yet another act of treason against the Fatherland.'” (07/20/26)
- The Kleptocrat Nesting Dolls Behind Trump’s Potemkin Gas Stations
Source: The American Prospect
by Maureen Tkacik“How can Freedom Fuel afford to sell gas for $3.47 a gallon? That’s the wrong question to ask.” (07/20/26)
- Terminal Representation
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, 84, has been absent from Congress, hospitalized for weeks — first with no comment on his medical condition, still with very little information divulged. There should be an ethic in public service that when one is incapacitated, one hands the trust given back to the public to fill anew. Sadly, this tradition has fallen victim to … take your pick: incumbency, partisanship, lack of electoral competition, Cicero’s times/mores. History’s third-oldest U.S. Congress ‘boasts’ 23 members of the House and Senate now eighty years old or older.” (07/20/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/07/20/terminal-representation/
- The GOP’s Freak Streak Could Boost Democratic Socialists
Source: The American Conservative
by Scott Greer“Marx looms over the American political landscape. Victor Marx, that is. As Democrats continue to embrace anti-white socialists, Colorado Republicans nominate a strange outsider for governor. … Marx claims to be a high-risk humanitarian who rescues women from dangerous circumstances. He told an interviewer he helped kill a man when he was seven. He frequently talks about engaging in exorcisms and battling demons. These comments and others would make him a hit on the podcast circuit, but aren’t ideal for a gubernatorial candidate. … DSA candidates have a discernible ideology. Marx and other ‘Insane Clown Party’ figures do not. … The DSA can actually take power and implement a radical agenda. The ICP can only lose races and create headlines for liberal reporters.” (07/20/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-gops-freak-streak-could-boost-democratic-socialists/
- The Liberal Origins of the War Against the Deep State
Source: Foreign Policy
by Julian E Zelizer“Fifty years ago, liberals were attacking what today is called the deep state—that is, the unelected members of the federal government. At the center of this liberal coalition was Idaho Sen. Frank Church, who in 1975 and 1976 headed high-profile hearings into the national security apparatus that had been created at the start of the Cold War in the late 1940s, but which seemed to be pursuing interests very different from what elected officials were telling voters.” (07/20/26)
- Data-center debate has one winning argument: Sheer panic — and it will backfire
Source: New York Post
by David Harsanyi“The economic case for data centers is indisputable: A single hyperscale facility brings in billions in capital investment, creates a slew of high-paying jobs from construction to engineering and ensures local governments are flush with tax revenue. Big Tech bogeymen such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta upgrade local infrastructure and create secondary economies, often in struggling areas. Long term, these companies offer self-sustaining economic activity that the magical ‘green’ industry never did or could.” (07/19/26)
- Trump Continues to Relitigate the 2020 Election
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye“Perhaps the most telling aspect of Trump’s address wasn’t what he said. It was what he didn’t say. At no point did he identify a single state where vote totals were changed. He didn’t claim that a voting machine actually switched votes. He didn’t allege that tabulation reports were manipulated or that election databases were corrupted. He didn’t present evidence that any jurisdiction reported vote totals it knew to be false. He relied on the viewer to infer those claims without stating them explicitly. Instead, the speech relied on familiar patterns, such as discussions of foreign cyber capabilities, intelligence reporting, and potential vulnerabilities. Each of these was presented as proof that the election itself had been manipulated.” (07/19/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/trump-continues-to-relitigate-th
- Red States Are Winning the Prosperity Race
Source: Independent Institute
by Richard K Vedder & Nicholas Jadwisienczak“Republicans disheartened by growing fears of electoral losses at the federal level this fall can take some solace in evidence from a new, soon-to-be-released study that we coauthored for Unleash Prosperity, a group focused on promoting pro-growth policies. The graph below shows the results from that study, revealing that in this century economic growth has been substantially greater in the Republican Red states. The new study focuses on the more recent years 2020-2024, using modern statistical techniques to show that even after other factors impacting economic change—like climate, the proportion of the population working in manufacturing or producing oil, or the degree of urbanization—are taken into account, Republican-dominated states grew sharply faster than Democratic oriented ones.” (07/19/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/19/red-states-are-winning-the-prosperity-race/
- Zionism is a White Occupied Cult
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid“It seems to be a tried-and-true trope even if it is a bit of a tired one for a seasoned Oliver Stone-style conspiracy enthusiast such as myself. The dreaded Zionist Occupied Government (or ZOG if your nasty) is really just a very nineties take on the ancient notion of the Jews secretly controlling everything from the banks to the claw machine at your local Chuck E. Cheese. Naturally, all racism aside, I’ve always found the notion a tad bit hard to swallow. … Gross story short; as much as I may despise Zionism along with every other school of racial supremacy, the notion of said Zionists calling the shots at the country club has always felt a bit like the tentacle wagging the Cthulhu to me, that is until recently when October 7th seemed to collide with the second Trump Administration like a wayward meteorite.” (07/19/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/07/zionism-is-white-occupied-cult.html
- Trump’s War on International Justice
Source: Informed Comment
by Jenny Williams“There is something revealing about the way Washington talks about international law. When the law moves against an adversary, it becomes the language of civilisation. When the same law approaches the United States or Israel, it suddenly becomes an assault on sovereignty. … The United States wants a world in which law flows downward, never upward. It wants courts that can frighten weaker states, isolate rival leaders and decorate speeches about a rules-based order, but not institutions that can ask uncomfortable questions about Gaza, Afghanistan or American military operations abroad. That is not the rule of law. It is the management of impunity.” (07/20/26)
https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/trumps-international-justice.html
- Cycles of Enthusiasm, Reversal, and Revival in Medical Practice
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Alan Cassels“Remember that thing that we said was good for you, then we changed our minds telling you it’s now bad for you. And now? We’re changing our minds again…umm, maybe it is good for you again. Medicine that claims to be ‘evidence-based’ is never static. It changes. Sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly and so too do our doctor’s suggestions about what they think is right to keep us healthy. In that light, sometimes medical recommendations around screening, surgery, or treatments like drugs or vaccines follow a certain pattern: widespread Enthusiasm based on promising early evidence, a Reversal when rigorous trials reveal limited benefits or unexpected harms, and then a Revival driven by new interpretations, technological tweaks, manufacturer greed, or good old advocacy.” (07/19/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/cycles-of-enthusiasm-reversal-and-revival-in-medical-practice/
- The Chris Hedges Report, 07/19/26
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
“Is Iran Becoming Another ‘Forever War’? (w/ John Mearsheimer).” (07/19/26)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/is-iran-becoming-another-foreve
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 07/19/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“PART TWO: Let’s Examine the JC Filings: Appeal of the Disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of NH.” (07/19/26)
- John Mearsheimer on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“John Mearsheimer on Iran, Ukraine and the Future of American Power.” (07/19/26)